Comment by niko001 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by niko001 | Hacker News Reader

1. Get a native speaker to proofread your website copy

2. The title of the page is "Sieve Pro - The best management tool for" (missing a "freelancers")?

3. Some people might like it, but I'm always turned off when websites are using SV characters as profile placeholders - makes the site itself seem like a joke

4. As others have said, develop your own signup form instead of using TypeForm - TypeForm always gives me an "MVP"-feel (is the product actually available or do they just want to harvest my email for a later launch?)

5. The footer says "Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy" but these aren't links and I can't find those documents anywhere

6. Clarify if the virtual assistant is an actual person (someone on your team) or a chatbot - makes a huge difference in terms of value: I don't want to scare away my clients with a dumb chatbot, but if there's a human answering (easy) questions 24/7, I'd be impressed

Remember that traffic from ProductHunt is short-lived and the users may not be in your target audience (but just want to check out a cool landing page) - just because you get lots of upvotes on PH doesn't mean that these users will stick around or are actually interested in becoming paying users of your product. Find out where your target audience hangs out (freelancing forums, Slack groups, Facebook communities) and speak to your (potential) users - find out if the features you're offering are actually relevant to your target group. If they are, invite them to try out your product and give you feedback.

Woah, all my points already here. Would add, and please don’t take this personal, but get a native speaker to do the voice over. You are unlucky to have a bad stereotype matched with your dialect.

In addition:

1. Don’t use thumbs up icons and smileys in your professional website. I’m not on Facebook.

2. So many grammar errors. Also in the video.

3. First overview in the video has so much information yet tells me nothing. To be honest your product already failed here for me. If not for the Ask HN I would close my tab and never look back.

4. What’s up with all the multi-page flashy text box questions? For me, on a professional site, don’t do animations and just keep a single page for one question list. Be really, really careful with animations. The one on your landing page already touched my nerves btw. Feels like someone who does his first keynote/PowerPoint presentation. Animations everywhere.

Thanks for this one! Tried using the smileys to make it look bit relaxed :) Will consider the other points and do the needful.

Noted all the feedback, the virtual assistant is a real person who answers basic questions about the freelancers, and not a chatbot. I think that's really good as well, overall I think we failed at showcasing and on the onboarding flow and using the typeform :)

Why are they called a “virtual assistant”? I would just call that an assistant. I have always thought a virtual assistant is a chatbot. In fact, I have never even given one of them a chance bacause I was so sure of it.

Virtual assistant[0] is an accepted term for a human assistant, but agree that with the increase it chatbots it is confusing. Definitely worth clarifying as having a real person answering the questions is a lot more valuable.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_assistant_(occupation)

Noted the point, will clarify in the copy.

What grammatical or typographical errors prompt the advice to get someone to proofread the website?

I'm asking because I see this advice quite often, and most of the times I can't find anything wrong. Could someone point out specific errors that I miss? Perhaps I need to get an editor myself.

"We help freelancers become more professional with automatic streamlined process for managerial tasks like client onboarding, signing NDA and requirement collection right from their personal website."

"with automatic streamlined process" should probably be "an automatic streamlined process". I don't think the way it is now is technically wrong but it doesn't feel right.

"Never delay your client to wait for an NDA." doesn't really make sense. "Never delay your client with an NDA" or "Never make your client wait for an NDA" would be better.

"This will be automatically added to your calendar." technically correct but I think native speakers would more often say "This will automatically be added to your calendar".

"All the process" -> "The entire process"

"to call scheduling take place under 30 minutes" -> "Will take place in under 30 minutes"

"you will have all details to start a call" -> "you will have all the details to start a call"

and if you really want to get it right, you need to use proper parallel structure when stringing clauses together:

`for managerial tasks like client onboarding, signing NDA and requirement collection right from their personal website`

would read better as:

`for managerial tasks like onboarding clients, signing NDAs, and collecting requirements right from their personal website`

Copyediting is largely getting eliminated as an 'unnecessary' expense in the world of web content publishing, but when the life of your business might depend on some marketing copy, good professional copyediting is priceless.

--edited for alliteration, grammar, and oxford comma

Looks like I can get the copy changes from here too :) Thanks for this!

> > "We help freelancers become more professional with automatic streamlined process for managerial tasks like client onboarding, signing NDA and requirement collection right from their personal website."

> "with automatic streamlined process" should probably be "an automatic streamlined process". I don't think the way it is now is technically wrong but it doesn't feel right.

Ambiguous plurality. Go for either singular "with an automatic streamlined process" or plural "with automatic streamlined processes".

I believe this is a common mistake for people whose first language is Chinese, which doesn't have indefinite articles. A co-worker drops articles pretty regularly.

Thanks for this! :)

It says “29$/month” instead of “$29 / month” in the “For Starters” section. Putting the dollar sign after the number just seems foreign. The sentence right after that is a run-on sentence.

First, I'd remove the implication that the customer is not professional. Assume your customer _is_ professional, but needs help with some bureaucratic functions. The phrase "automatic streamlined process for managerial tasks like client onboarding, signing NDA and requirement collection" is pretty terrible and confusedly jargony. Who is signing the NDA? Unclear. Who is actually benefits from the service? Unclear. IS NDA signing and requirement collection a part of the onboarding process, or some other thing? Unclear.

"We help professional freelancers provide a streamlined process for creating new client accounts. Collecting your client's requirements and NDA forms can be managed directly from your own website."

Been getting feedback for "professional" a lot. Thanks, will edit accordingly, we are working on an entirely new copy of the website.

There are a number of subject/verb agreement issues ("All the process ... take place") and such but mostly it's an issue of odd clause construction and word choice, with some run-on sentences.

For example: "Never delay your client to wait for an NDA." A more idiomatic version would be "Never make your client wait for an NDA" or perhaps "Never let waiting on an NDA delay your clients."

What's "SV character"?

A character from the HBO show "Silicon Valley", I believe.

See the guy on their demo page [0]? He's a fictional character [1] on the HBO show Silicon Valley [2].

[0]: https://bighead.sievehq.com/

[1]: http://silicon-valley.wikia.com/wiki/Big_Head

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_(TV_series)

Using copyrighted photos for commercial purposes without permission will bring in some nasty letters from lawyers (demands for takedown, demands for payment, etc.)

And to a potential customer, it indicates a lack of basic trustworthiness - if someone is unaware of or uncaring of the basic laws about copyright, should I trust them with my credit card number?

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